This piece reflects how we think about hospitality at Southernhay House — and why we believe our brand of intentional, human-centred hospitality will matter more than ever in the years ahead.

The word luxury has grown threadbare in the lobbies of modern British hospitality. It is used to describe everything from half-hearted ‘vintage’ decor to app-based check-ins with digital keys and an ipad in your bedroom. 

Hospitality, rooted in the relationship between host and stranger, originally implied not just service but meeting in the flesh; the act of welcoming, sheltering and engaging a guest with goodwill. In its commercial form, the hospitality industry is a bedroom, food and beverage, and everything that supports travel. But that framing misses something that I am obsessed with: the intangible, behavioural heart of what it means to be hospitable.

Today, economic and social currents make human engagement increasingly rare and, therefore, valuable. Incidentally, this may be one of the sweet spots where we can elide financial and emotional benefit.

Disappearance of Casual Third Places

Across England, the steady loss of local pubs, cafés and unmediated gathering places is not just a statistic; it is social infrastructure quietly closing. Approx 1 pub per day closed during 2025 - it’s harder to quantify the restaurants, small B&Bs and hotels also shutting weekly.

These were ordinary spaces where people met, talked and belonged on a whim. There’s such a cocktail of causes that make this depressingly predictable. You can cite rising costs (on everything, not only employment), regulation, the wringing out of small businesses by government. Last, but not least, your own behavioural trends, impulses and where and when you socialise and spend. Your whims.

So hospitality operators who emphasise experience over turnover: reservations over walk-ins, hotels that greet guests from first enquiry rather than automation, where housekeepers know your name, is not asceticism or elitism. This is a market response to scarcity: intent is a selling point. 

Hospitality has split. On the one hand you have frictionless convenience — order via app, experience by algorithm, speed over nuance. On the other, deliberate connection: service that anticipates without formula, environments orchestrated but not programmed.

Let’s talk people: what they cost and what their is their value?

This country has long regarded hospitality work as temporary — a McJob before something “proper” begins. That view is increasingly out of step with reality. When skilled staff are hard to find, they become precious: judgement, discretion, the ability to see a guest beyond their booking status. If you can conquer this, as a hospitality professional, then the world is at your feet.

Reframing our attitude to those who work in the sector, reframes “luxury.” It is not about ornamentation, but about attention. A Duty Manager who remembers your name, notices tension in a conversation and adjusts the tempo of a meal, these are moments of empathetic labour, and they are expensive because they cannot be automated. 

That DM is the antidote to AI and that is where their value lies. Of course, automation and AI are reshaping service back-of-house. Booking, inventory and pattern recognition can be handled by machines and you would be foolish not to; tech must liberates staff to focus on the unpredictable. Hospitality is art, not logistics.

Which I hope will prove the paradox that drives intentional hospitality: as AI perfects predictability, humans increasingly crave the opposite. A memorable night out can be messy: conversation, a spontaneous menu choice, a waiter who engages rather than just delivers. 

Is Luxury dead then, in 2026?

Intentional hospitality is not a platitude. It is a practice of entering into the guest’s agenda thoughtfully, of designing experiences that are coherent but human, favouring connection over commodification. It’s tone, company, mood and a sense of “fit.”

Relationship capital, something that has recently been defined as “clienting” is an accumulated goodwill between provider and customer that resists commodification. In hospitality, this is literal: when a guest feels seen, understood, and responded to, their loyalty deepens. This is not transactional efficiency; it is relational currency. It’s a space that is wide open for those of us still standing in 2026. Intentional hospitality is deliberate choreography of presence, design, judgment and care in a world where those qualities are increasingly rare.

If this sounds gentle and grounded, that’s because it is. Luxury has shifted from bling to basics: comfort, emotional connection, restoration. This is the human premium, which you will be paying for something that AI cannot provide.

Hospitable places will always be, and should be, refuges from your day-to-day. But today, hospitality is not only about offering a room, a dry Martini or a meal; it is about offering a reason to be there that feels worth the time, attention and expense.

And that is something precious. If we can play this right, we can all win.

What this means for Southernhay House

At Southernhay House, this way of thinking is not theoretical. It shapes how we host, how we staff, how we design our spaces, and, often most importantly, how we decide what not to do.



We are small by choice. We take fewer bookings than we could. We favour discretion over display, individual judgements over corporate script, and consistency.

We believe parties and celebrations deserve to feel composed rather than chaotic. That business gatherings benefit from calm, privacy and good food rather than performative gloss. That a good night out can be memorable without being loud, and that being properly hosted is becoming one of the quiet luxuries of modern life.

This is what intentional hospitality looks like in practice.